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Hi

I am now at the end of a long project in which I have placed an Ethernet port at every single desk in the office I work at. I am now at the stage where I am setting up the switch to manage all the traffic and attach these to the internet via our router. I am also looking at separating the switch with VLAN so that a few spare ports can be used for public wifi, just managed to do this. I am have trouble though find out information regarding this setup, I have a few questions.

  1. Which should I use as DHCP server? My Draytek router or my TP-Link smart managed switch?

  2. My router IP is on 192.168.1.x but my switch d NAS use 192.168.0.x is this an issue do I need to decide which one to use and change all things across?

Its all a little bit of a mess right now and any general details on the order to set things up would be great, I managed to get internet working on both wired (through switch) and WIFI (via a hotspot) however things such as NAS and network printer only work on WIFI

Thanks for any help

Matheu Broom

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How many VLANs you have? And why router and NAS are on a separate subnet?

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We have 2 VLANs one public internet so no access to printer, NAS ect and the other private for staff. I think this maybe the issue with subnets as when trying to login to switch I have to manually set my subnet on PC. When on settings on switch the subnet is 255.255.255.0 should I change this to 255.255.0.0 is this the standard PC setting, I cant find a way to change subnet on pc with out giving a static IP.

Thanks for replying so quickly

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You said it’s a small office, so I presume less than 50 devices. In this case, there’s no need to use separate subnets. Any reason why you are doing so?

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Yes less then 50 devices, I am not wanting to use two subnets, i have not changed anything from the settings that the devices came with and I am wondering how I should go about fixing it

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Well, before starting with VLANs and similar, take control of the whole situation. Start from scratch if necessary. Adding VLANs to the current setup, if you are not on top of it, will give you more troubles than benefits.

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Ok ill give it another go tonight when people are out of the office. With regards to DHCP server what is best to use the switch or the router? and should I give a static IP to all things like hotspot and NAS

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ALL of your equipment (router, switch, NAS, PCs, printers, etc…) should be on the same VLAN. The router, switch, NAS, and printers should have static IPs or DHCP reservations while your computers should receive addresses from DHCP. A second VLAN should be created for your public devices. DHCP requests can be served from either your router or your switch but keep in mind your router will need interfaces or sub-interfaces (and an address) for each VLAN that it is to be a member of. Also, you will have to use two subnets; it’s just the nature of VLANs. You’ll need two DHCP scopes setup for two subnets so 192.168.1.x /24 for your public and 192.168.0.x /24 for your private.

Depending on your WiFi hardware, you have two options.

  1. If you have “business class” access points, they should be static IPs on the same VLAN as your other equipment. The switch port to which they are connected is set to be a trunk with the appropriate VLANs allowed to pass over this trunk. You should configure two SSIDs for wireless; one as private on the same VLAN as your internal network, and one as public on your second VLAN.
  2. If you have “consumer class” access points, configure one for your public Wifi and this switch port should be set as an access port on your public VLAN. The second AP should be configured for your private wireless and the switch port should be set as an access port on your private VLAN.